CalvinDude.com

While the media around the world often is offensive for the sake of offense, in the case of Danish papers reprinting Mohommed cartoons, I agree with the media outlets who have reprinted them. When it comes to politics, there is no greater right than the right for people to have free speech. This right should not be trampled by any religious group, and of course if Shaira law is ever put into effect in America the first thing that would go is the entirety of the Constitution. None of the Constitution is harmonic with Islam.

Sadly, most American news outlets are not printing these cartoons. Somehow, they’ve got a misguided sense that one cannot offend Muslims at all costs (note that this rule does not apply to offending Christians–probably because Christians don’t go around blowing up innocent people when they get offended). It is quite ironic that the country that has the First Amendment is exercizing censorship on behalf of those who would destroy the First Amendment if they had political power.

Free speech is too important of an issue to kowtow to extremists. If we surrender our right to speak out against what we disagree with, it is only a matter of time before everything else crumbles away too.

Former Pakistania P.M. Banazir Bhutto was assassinated this morning. And while the title of this blog post (who woulda seen that coming?) could refer to that, it doesn’t. Instead, it refers to the dingbat wing of our nation.

For instance, comments on this ABC blog post include such gems as:

ok, this has all the signs of crap. No matter what comes out now, AlQueada has been associated with this. Welcome back to the politics of fear. Next, we will hear how someone admitted of this plot under torture and that if we had been allowed to be more aggressive with it we might have found something out sooner.

Posted by: Louis | Dec 27, 2007 12:10:48 PM

And my personal favorite:

A perfect excuse from the White House to enter in Pakistan????? How many american kids will die now? How many troops will be send to Pakistan?? How many mothers will be crying? Please, my friends No more War…no more suffering.

Posted by: norma | Dec 27, 2007 12:24:34 PM

Yes. The segment of our country that knows only blind hatred of George W. Bush thinks that this is all a big conspiracy for us to invade Pakistan now! There is no reasoning with people such as this.

But look at the end of the above post: “Please, my friends No more War…no more suffering.”

There’s a huge problem with this mentality. If you do not go after the thugs, you will get nothing but pain and suffering. Sorry “norma”, but those of us in the real world recognize that sometimes we need to kill people who would kill us. If you don’t believe it, let’s move it to a different topic. Take the gangsters of the 1930s. Do you suppose when Bruno shook down the store owners for “protection money” that, if the owner said, “Please, my friend. No more war. No more suffering. Let’s all get along” that Bruno woulda said, “Gee, you’re right”? Of course not. Bruno would have said, “Give me the money or I’ll cap you.”

When someone is already willing to do harm to an innocent person, then you’re not going to stop him with words. The fact is, evil people exist in the world. And evil people prey on others. They do not care about your concept of non-violence. They are more than willing to blow you to bits to get their way. This is reality.

There’s a reason God instituted government with the power of the sword.

I just saw this post: Washington Post, Other Newspapers Won’t Run ‘Opus’ Cartoon Mocking Radical Islam. This comes a week after they did publish an “Opus” cartoon mocking Jerry Falwell.

Here’s the interesting little tidbit. The Washington Post Writers Group is the syndicate for Berkeley Breathed, the author of “Opus.” When they sent out the cartoon to the local papers, they warned that Muslims might find the cartoon offensive. Amy Lago said she flagged the strip and, of course, also claims she “do[es] that fairly regularly with materials that might pose issues for local areas.”

Of course, Ms. Lago did not send out such an alert regarding the Falwell cartoon. Perhaps this is because, as much as they are vilified in the press, Christian fundamentalists don’t detonate.

The Christian riot consists of people boycotting Disney for a month.

The Muslim riot consists of lots of burning objects and dead people.

The article of course ends with what can only be described as “a keen sense of the obvious”:

As far as whether the Post and the Post Writers Group syndicate treated content about conservative Christians differently than it did content about conservative Muslims, it certainly could be taken that way.

“It appears on the surface to be a double standard,” Burford said, “but at the same time, the climate of the world probably informs their decision with how to go forward with it.”

(Of course, I cannot resist the temptation: “The climate of the world” informs editorial decisions? That Global Warming is so pesky!!!!)

In any case, it would be nice of certain individuals *coughcoughRichardDawkinscoughcough* would own up to the fact that not all religions are equal, and, in fact, mocking Christians is a much less successful method of suicide than mocking Muslims. But when your template is “All religions are evil” you can’t even see that which is labled under the “keen sense of the obvious.”

Two men are willing to die for their beliefs. The first is a Christian in Afghanistan who refuses to submit to Islam. The second submits to that Islam.

The first guy was working for an international Christian group, helping Afghani refugees in Pakistan.  He was arrested for carrying a Bible.

The second man went to Afghanistan and talked with Osama bin Laden about becoming a suicide pilot.  He dreamed about flying a plane in an attack on the United States.  He was arrested and then lied to investigators so 3,000 innocent people could be killed.

Which one of these individuals would you like to hang out with?

Anyone who thinks that Christianity and Islam are equal religions needs to get a clue.  Here we see:

“Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die,” said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hardline regime was ousted in 2001.

 

That’s right, the moderate position is that if you were a Muslim and you become a non-Muslim, you must die.  (I think the folks over at Debunking Atheism should consider what would have happened if they were ex-Muslims instead of ex-Christians.)

If this doesn’t highlight the difference between the two religions, it’s only because you are refusing to see.  Most people probably can’t even remember the last time a Christian blew up an abortion clinic–and even if they did have memories that went back that long, they’d have to acknowledge that the overwhelming Christian response from everyone including the “Religious Right” was condemnation of the whackos who did such things.

Islam, on the other hand, continues to blow up people daily.

Atheists like to say that all religions are equal, and that religion is the heart of all the problems in the world.  This is patently absurd, and it’s fairly easy to prove:

Would you rather offend a Christian (which the Debunkers do constantly) or a Muslim?

Tell me again how these are equal?

Apparently, Germany doesn’t allow you to “insult” religions.  This really makes me wonder what would happen if that law were in effect here in America.

Needless to say, I’m opposed to it.  Not because I think brilliant people need to go around mocking Islam (they don’t), but because people should be arrested for “insult.”  It’s just one of those feel-good do-nothing laws that suffocates free speach.

In Brit Hume’s Grapevine we read the following:

A government minister in India has offered $11.5 million to anyone who beheads one of the Danish artists responsible for those controversial cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

Muhammad Quereshi — minister of state for Haj and Minorities Welfare in India’s largest state, said “the avenger” would also receive his weight in gold, adding that the money would be paid by the people of his province.

The state’s home secretary tells the Arab News that Quereshi “was simply expressing the common feeling of members of his community” and violated no laws since he “did not make the announcement in his capacity as a minister.”

What’s more frightening, the fact that this guy said it, or the fact that it was characterized as “the common feeling of members of his community”?  Seriously, though, one cannot help but see the difference between the Christian community and the Islamic community.  In Alabama, a bunch of Christian churches have been burned to the ground and destroyed.  Christians are taking up arms and calling for the beheading of those responsible…no wait a second, they’re not doing that.  They’re not doing…anything.

Meanwhile, cartoons have got the Muslims engaged in civil discourse such as burning down buidlings, rioting, and threatening to behead cartoonists.  All for an “insult” to Islam.

The world is finally waking up to the realization that the threat Islam poses to the rest of society is real.  This article, for example, quotes Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah saying:

Defending the prophet should continue all over the world. Let Condoleezza Rice and Bush and all the tyrants shut up. We are an Islamic nation that cannot tolerate, be silent or be lax when they insult our prophet and sanctities.

We will uphold the messenger of God not only by our voices but also by our blood.

This is true.  Islam cannot be tolerant of other religions–or lack of religious belief–and the thing that the West needs to realize is they are serious about the fact they will give their lives for their cause.  Muslims aren’t stupid people.  They aren’t barbarians.  They are human beings, just like we are.  The fact that they are wipped into such a frenzy over these cartoons demonstrates the depths to which their beliefs are held.  It does not in any way make them inferior or stupid that they believe so strenuously.

What it does do is make it very dangerous.  And until the West is going to wake up and realize that Islam is serious about our downfall, there will only be more demonstrations like we’re seeing now.  But more importantly, until the Church realizes that she needs to present the Gospel to a group of people who think it’s righteous to die while killing infidels, their culture of death will never change.

The secular world has no answer for Islam.  Christians should.

Often times, Christians seem to be full of doom and gloom about the future.  Ironically, since I am someone who suffers from clinical depression, I am really optimistic about the future, and for the most part I’ve always been.

I think it is ultimately because Christianity is a religion of hope.  Even when I feel down, I can never abandon the fact that there is a ray of hope for me.  And when I am not feeling down, it is so obvious that I find content.

Contrast that with the pictures we see out of the Middle East now, as the riots continue because of the Mohammed cartoons.  I’ve read several pieces on the internet written by Christians who say that Christ has been depicted far worse in many cartoons.  That, to me, is really beside the point.  The point isn’t that our views have been mocked before, it’s that when they’ve been mocked the worst we do is write letters of complaint.  Even the secularists in America are hard pressed to find a radical Christian who is violent towards others.  Sure, they point to the abortion bombings–but that was what, three people?  And when was the last abortion bombing?

Contrast that with the thousands of people rioting in the streets across many countries in the Middle East, threatening death.  Their threats are not idle, as they’ve already proven that they have no problem murdering innocent people for political gain.  The difference is, indeed, vast.

Naturally, someone might ask me why I still remain optimistic then, if these Muslims exist in the world.  Frankly, it’s because the Muslims are showing their true colors right now.  The “religion of peace” is anything but peaceful, and it’s on display for the whole world to see.  On the other hand, the secularist regimes who are provoking this response are likewise demonstrating that they are intolerant and intellectually elitists snobs.  This, too, is out for the world to see.

While this, of course, is a relatively new thing, it only underpins the things that I have felt for a long time.  I think that God is moving in America.  He is either bringing about a Reformation, or He is going to bring about our downfall–but in either way, Christianity will advance.  And honestly, of the two options, I really think that Christianity is very close to another Reformation, something akin to the Great Awakening. 

Do I have proof for this beyond a feeling?  Well, nothing concrete.  But crime statistics are mostly down, as are teen pregnancies and drug use.  These sorts of things give us a general barometer of the culture (although one cannot make dogmatic claims based on them, naturally).  I don’t think there will necessarily be an immediate shift, but perhaps in the next ten or twenty years (as, to put it bluntly, the Baby Boomers start to die off, along with their attitudes cultivated during the 60s), our culture will gradually improve even more.

Could it be a pipe dream?  Yes.  But could it really happen?  That too is yes.